The southern portion of the region, on Lake Ontario is primarily suburban in nature, forming the eastern end of the 905 belt of suburbs around Toronto. The northern area comprises rural areas and small towns. The city of Pickering, town of Ajax and the township of Uxbridge are considered part of Toronto's Census Metropolitan Area, while the communities of Oshawa, Whitby, and Clarington are part of the Oshawa's Census Metropolitan Area.

The Region of Durham was established in 1974 as one of several new regional governments in the Province of Ontario, primarily in fast-growing urban and suburban areas. It encompasses areas that had been part of Ontario County and the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham, and was the culmination of a series of studies into municipal governance in the "Oshawa-Centred Region" that had begun in the late 1960s. The boundaries of the region were different than had been anticipated and from those announced in late 1972; for example, it was widely expected that Pickering would be annexed to Metropolitan Toronto, which residents had expressed preference for in a ballot question. In addition, the region was proposed to extend further east to include Hope Township and the town of Port Hope, and did not include the northern townships of Scott, Brock and Thorah.

The Regional Municipality of Durham is predominately white representing 70.1% of the population. There is also a large population of South Asians totaling 8.6% of the population and Black Canadians totaling 8.0% of the population. Smaller ethnic groups include Filipino with 2.3% of the population, Aboriginal with 2.0%, Chinese with 1.9%, Mixed visible minority with 1.3%, Latin American with 1.0% and West Asian (Middle Eastern) with 1.0%.

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Durham Region is a major centre of the Canadian automobile industry. Oshawa is the Canadian headquarters of General Motors and home of GM's largest plant in North America. In addition, the Canadian headquarters of Volkswagen is located in the region, BMW was located in the region until moving to Richmond Hill in 2010. The worldwide recession and spike in oil prices resulted in large-scale layoffs at GM beginning in 2008, along with the closure of the Oshawa Truck plant in 2009. This dramatically reduced employment levels at GM, and also resulted in significant employment losses and closures in the auto parts industry. While a number of models are currently produced in Oshawa, concerns remain about GM's long-term future as a manufacturer in Canada as no production is currently slated for Oshawa beyond 2016.

Highway 407, a privately owned toll freeway, enters the region south of Highway 7 and travels east to Durham Regional Road 1 (Brock Road) before transitioning to a provincially owned highway, Highway 407E. This route travels generally parallel to Highway 7, with a temporary terminus at Durham Regional Road 4 (Taunton Road) west of Hampton at the future location of Highway 418.

Highway 412, part of the Highway 407E project, connects south to Highway 401 parallel and east of Durham Regional Road 23 (Lakeridge Road).

Public transit in the Region is operated by Durham Region Transit, which was formed in January 2006 when the five preexisting municipal public transit systems in the region were merged under the Region's administration.

A DRT bus awaits passengers at the Ajax GO station

In addition, GO Transit provides the following services within the Region:

Neither school board is an operating division of the regional government. Instead, as is true of all school boards in Ontario, they are separate entities with distinct but overlapped service areas. Elected public trustees responsible for their operation.